Denver Architecture Foundation Launches New Lecture Series to Honor Influential Denver Architect:
Alan Golin Gass AB'53, MArch'56
Alan Gass AB'53, MArch'56
Overview
The Denver Architecture Foundation Has Launched a New Lecture Series to Honor Influential Denver Architect Alan Golin Gass.
Gass’s contributions span a sixty-year career advocating for Denver’s built environment.
News release
DENVER, CO.
March 20, 2025 — The Denver Architecture Foundation (DAF) has launched a new, named lecture series to honor powerhouse Denver architect and urban advocate Alan Golin Gass and his six-decade career and longer tenure as a devoted advocate for Denver’s built environment.
The inaugural Alan Golin Gass Annual Lecture will take place on Wednesday, April 23, 2025
Bio
About Alan Gass: Alan Gass has an undergraduate degree from Harvard College and a Master in Architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design. On his return to Denver in 1958, Alan assisted J. S. Sudler, FAIA, and R. S. Davis, AIA, in the design of the Byron Rogers Federal Court House and Office Building, and designed Mr. & Mrs. Thomas B. Knowles’s Polo Grounds Residence for the Sudler Office.
Early in his career, Alan worked in the office of I. M. Pei, FAIA, gaining experience in the design of three major contemporary urban complexes: the Mile High Center, Court House Square / Zeckendorf Plaza in Denver, and Kips Bay Plaza Apartments development in New York City.
Over the years Alan has demonstrated that a busy professional can serve both private clients and the public in architecture and urban design. He is a founder of AIA/Denver Urban Design Committee. Throughout his time in practice, and to the present day, Alan continues to provide pro-bono services as a member of public committees and boards, urban design and transportation committees, Denver, Colorado West, and New York City Chapters of the American Institute of Architects, the City and County of Denver, the City Club of Denver, and Temple Emanuel.
He continues as president of the Babi Yar Park Foundation, that originated, and continues to advocate for the City of Denver’s 27-acre Holocaust memorial. Alan also serves as Board Member Emeritus for Denver Architecture Foundation.
About the Alan Golin Gass Annual Lecture: Created in 2025, this annual event is a platform for esteemed architects and urban designers to share ideas, foster dialogue, and inspire audiences to envision the future of Denver’s built environment.
The lecture series is named to honor Alan Golin Gass, FAIA, a fourth-generation Denverite who graduated from East High School, Harvard College, and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He began his career as an intern for the world-renowned I.M. Pei. Gass then spent the next six decades designing buildings in Denver, Aspen, and New York City, consulting for a dozen different architectural firms and maintaining his own, Alan Golin Gass Architect, known as AGGA.
Gass designed or worked on the design team for the following notable projects: Chatfield High School, the original Solar Energy Research Institute, the original solar design for the Front Range Community College campus, the former World Savings Building at 400 16th St., the Sentry Insurance building at 401 Broadway (now the offices of Fentress Architects), the Yale and Jewell Elementary schools in Aurora, five schools in South Dakota, and the Joan and Irving Harris Concert Hall in Aspen. He led the renovation and expansion of several designated landmark buildings in New York City, including the Swiss Bank Tower and the Compton and Goethals Halls at City College of New York.
The Gass residence, which he designed and built in 1961 on South Harrison Lane in Denver—in part to convince his girlfriend to marry him—was designated a Denver Historic Landmark in 2023.
Find more information at: Denver Architecture Foundation